


Miles to Go

by Lies_Unfurl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in Purgatory, Dean in Purgatory, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Purgatory, Snow, Solo Hunter Dean, Stanford Era, Wings, Winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 23:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9094858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lies_Unfurl/pseuds/Lies_Unfurl
Summary: A moment in Purgatory recalls the first time that Castiel kept Dean safe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Two-shot. First part is gen and set during the Stanford era; second part will take place in Purgatory. Work title from the Frost poem; chapter titles from Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter."

The snow begins falling at a brisk inch an hour while Dean is hot on the trail of the skogsrå. He gives little reaction besides pulling up his hood as he tracks the hollow-backed woman deeper and deeper into the forest.

Castiel does not interfere. The skogsrå, or the men she has lured to their death, mean little to him. He has not been told they are of importance; thus, they are irrelevant.

His charge tonight is Dean Winchester. He does not know what makes him more worthy of Heaven’s protection than all the others who will find themselves imperiled by the storm. Zachariah didn’t tell him, and he does not question. He just focuses.

Castiel follows Dean as the snow begins piling up, as he plunges further into the woods. From what Castiel knows of human abilities – from eons of observing their evolution, and from a few brief years spent embodied within one – the odds that an ordinary person could track an animal through these woods, let alone a creature with the stealth and cunning of a skogsrå, are slim. Castiel can see the residue that she leaves behind easily: miniscule chips of bark fallen from her back, traces of her elemental essence lingering in the brush, trees that would have fallen in the winter storm renewed and strengthened under her touch. 

Dean cannot perceive such clues. He seems to be relying on occasional strands of her blonde hair caught on branches, or indentations in the leaves and dirt where her hooved feet have touched down. Castiel knows enough about human limitation to be impressed by his abilities. The way that his Father’s creatures overcome what seem to be insurmountable deficiencies – it never ceases to awe, to remind him of the perfection of all God’s design.

The snow has been falling for close to an hour and a half by the time that Dean stumbles upon a clear cloven footprint from the skogsrå. “Fucking finally,” he mutters. The prints lead him off the side trail he’s been heading down. His steps pick up speed, confidence. 

Castiel follows close behind, not yet needed. He does not know precisely what his mission is. He must protect Dean, but the memories of past hunts that flicker intermittently to the surface of Dean’s mind suggest that the skogsrå is nothing new to him, not particularly challenging.

The footprints end abruptly. Dean stills, hands moving towards his gun. Castiel can see the skogsrå, standing frozen among the trees, waiting to surprise Dean. He’s prepared to act if necessary, to smite her before she can do any harm, but his orders are clear: Dean is not to know he is here; his help must be subtle, his presence unrevealed.

It doesn’t come to that, anyway. The skogsrå leaps out at Dean, beautiful face twisted in fury. Dean dodges the attack, slipping back against the tree and pivoting to grab at a fragile branch. It snaps off under his weight, sending him to the wet ground. But what hurt he feels from the impact is minimal compared to that of the skogsrå. Connected to the land through decades of preying and prowling through the woods, the pain of the trees is her pain too. The men she has lured to their deaths were loggers, causing her as much grief as she caused them in their final moments.

Part of Castiel wonders if her killings weren’t justified, attempts at protection for herself and for her land. It doesn’t matter, of course; Dean doesn’t see in such shades of gray, and orders for what man lives and what man dies come from far above his head. Still. Something in the oncoming brutality troubles him.

He brushes it off. He’s here to protect Dean, not to care for the life of a creature that has killed and will kill again.

In any case, the pain that the skogsrå experiences provides the distraction that Dean needs: as she grabs her hair and wails, he draws out his pistol and shoots. The silver bullet lands slightly above her heart, but it’s a kill shot all the same. She shrieks and clutches her chest as she falls back. Dean clambers onto his feet in time to see her fall apart into a pile of twigs and rotted leaves.

“Huh,” he mutters. “At least I don’t have to worry about burning the body.”

It’s at that moment, as he absentmindedly brushes snow from his clothes, that he seems to become fully aware of his situation. Castiel watches as the bloodlust of the hunt clears from his mind and he notices, really notices, how deep in the woods he is, how the snow is picking up. And how dark it’s getting – Castiel has been trailing him through the woods since the early afternoon, saw how Dean compared the risk of being discovered against the benefits of natural sunlight, how he figured the cold would work to his advantage in keeping civilians out of the woods. The storm wasn’t supposed to start until late in the evening.

“Shit,” Dean says. He takes a deep breath and shivers. “Okay. C’mon.”

He turns from the once-living pile of wood. “Backtrack. You’re not in that deep.”

He sounds uncertain. For good reason. He’s spent two hours branching off further and further from the main trail. Castiel recalls every turn he has taken. He suspects that Dean does not.

Castiel soundlessly trails his charge as he follows his footprints back to the barely-worn trail he last departed from. By the time he’s found it, the tracks are almost gone, obscured by the ever-increasing snow.

“Okay,” Dean says aloud again. “Remember the map. Keep straight on this. You’ll come to the trailhead eventually.”

The map is in his backpack, as is his compass and the rations he brought for what was supposed to be a short afternoon hike. Castiel watches as he contemplates checking the map or the compass to confirm his suspicions. 

Dean decides against it. The increasing snow would ruin a fragile paper map anyway, and it’s getting colder. He has to keep moving.

So he does. And Castiel follows.

Dean’s instincts are correct: the trail he’s on will eventually connect to the main one. It’s not the quickest route, nor the easiest. There are plenty of other side trails that are better maintained than the one he’s taking, where the trail markers are faded and barely outline the path.

But he is able to follow it, and Castiel figures that that’s enough to justify not interfering. Dean moves with confidence in more or less the right direction. He slips more than once, narrowly regaining his balance with no help from Castiel, and he has to stop periodically to tighten his scarf. But he’s moving, so Castiel assumes he is doing fine.

Until he isn’t.

Dean stops abruptly, leaving Castiel to pull up close behind him. Castiel frowns. He was measuring the slowly rising discomfort in Dean – concerns over the growing dark and the growing rate of snow falling, over the cold sinking through his coat and his gloves, over the bruises left when he fell in the struggle with the skogsrå. But he didn’t notice that it had hit some sort of peak, some level that rendered it unbearable.

“Fuck.” Dean turns in a circle. Castiel cannot perceive the cause of his swearing, and he doubts Dean can see something he can’t. The darkness and the storm should render the forest, to human eyes, into a blur of shapes and outlines. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He leans against a tree and drops his head into his hands, lifts it up when his snow-soaked gloves provide no respite from whatever is currently distressing him. “You dumbass. Your third hunt alone and you’re gonna fucking freeze to death. That’s worse than a monster getting the drop on you, isn’t it?”

He lifts his head, like he’s expecting some answer to come out of the sky. Snowflakes instantly cover his cheeks, lips, lashes, and a part of Castiel aches. He has been warned before that he can be too sympathetic towards humans, and at moments like this he can understand where the concerns of his supervisors arise from. He is tempted to stop the storm altogether, in definite violation of his orders to be subtle. Anything to stem the panic rising inside Dean now, as he tries to figure out how to cope with his situation.

But there are better, if less immediate, options. Ones that allow him to protect Dean without disobeying. It only takes Castiel seconds to find a nearby rock formation, a stony outcropping that provides a natural windbreak. The den, in the past, housed wolves, but all were hunted from this forest long ago. Tonight, it’s free for Dean’s taking.

Castiel hesitates behind Dean. He has no vessel and has no present reason to think that this man could hear his true voice. How to make him see the shelter?

He decides to go with the wind. He lets his wings touch the edges of Earth and strokes them up and down, enough to add to the already powerful gales of the storm.

As Castiel expected, Dean turns away, shielding his face from the wind. He stumbles to the side of the trail. Almost there. A path leads up to the rocks, but it’s obscured by the snowfall. 

Castiel reaches to the clouds. He knows this technique lacks subtlety; he knows he may get reprimanded – but what else is he to do? Manifest light out of nothing? Surely Dean would be too suspicious to trust a will-o’-the-wisp to guide him.

The gibbous moon breaches the split clouds, allowing a moment’s respite from the storm. It brightens the woods, but is it enough to show Dean the shelter that lies ahead? It’s been so long since he took a vessel that Castiel has difficulty understanding the limitation of human senses.

Dean pauses, squinting down at the silvery snow. He looks ahead, takes a hesitant step in the direction of the rocks.

“Go,” Castiel murmurs, willing Dean to walk up the short slope to where shelter awaits. He cannot hold off the clouds much longer without causing serious disruption to the natural weather patterns. “Dean. The rocks. You’ll be safer there.”

Dean looks up, frowning, eyes darting around as if he heard something. The wind? But it’s still right now, part of his efforts to illuminate Dean’s way. 

Then Dean turns ahead to where the den lies, a coincidental shelter of rocks eroded and fallen over the years. He takes a careful step up the slope, bracing himself against the birch trees that loom down over the trail. His feet slip, but he keeps his balance and staggers up, bracing himself against the rocks when he hits them.

Castiel lets the clouds slip back. The wind picks up, as if angry for him for holding it back.

Dean feels around and falls to his knees to crawl into the shelter. A slab of phyllite lies diagonally from the top of the entrance to the ground, bisecting the entryway and almost rendering it impassable. Dean has to remove his bag, duck, and squeeze to make his way under it and into the tiny cavern. Inside, the roof is tangled with roots from the trees that grow above it, and the stone walls are, of course, freezing in the storm. Dean has to sit hunched, his knees hugged to his chest. Even Castiel realizes that the position can’t be comfortable. But it’s something. The walls on three sides, and the rock that cuts the entrance in two, they keep the worst of the wind and the snow out. He won’t freeze.

Dean wraps his arms around himself and gazes out into the storm. Even without reaching into his mind Castiel can feel how tired he is, how exhausted. It’s more than just this hunt, a bone-deep weariness that’s been clinging to him for a long time. It’s more than just the stress of the storm that’s brought it to the surface.

Castiel wonders what Dean’s story is. There’s something about him, something important. Something that makes him worthy of divine protection. Zachariah didn’t bother telling him what that something was. That means he shouldn’t care. But a small, rebellious part of him wonders all the same.

Dean reaches forward and pulls his bag closer to him. His fingers, still in the snow-soaked gloves, fumble with the zipper of the outside pocket. He pulls out a lighter and flicks it on. The firelight emphasizes the hollows beneath his eyes. 

There’s so much that Castiel could, theoretically, do. He could transport Dean from the woods to his home, wherever that is. He could cause the lighter to burn for longer than physics, or its cheap make, would normally allow. He could blow the storm a few miles off, far enough to ensure Dean a clean path out without causing a disruption that might be deemed suspicious.

But he’s not supposed to do any of that. Watch Dean Winchester. Get him out of the storm safely. Do not make your presence known. Do not interfere any more than is absolutely necessary. 

Dean extinguishes the flame after having held it close to his face for several minutes. “Last thing I need is for that fucker to explode on me.” He says it like it’s a joke. Castiel can hear the regret in his voice as he lets his one source of warmth rest.

Again he hugs his arms close around his body. “Better like this anyway,” he mutters. “Being cold. It’s when you get warm you gotta worry, right? People who die of hypothermia will take off their clothes because they think it’s hot out. If I’m freezing my balls off, at least I know I’m alive.”

Despite the words, which Castiel can only assume are said for the sake of comforting himself, he scoots himself as far back into the den as possible. Now that he’s stationary, he’s shivering more.

A particularly strong gust howls through the entrance, blowing a fine layer of snowflakes into Dean’s eyes. He grimaces, and Castiel makes a decision.

He lands outside the den, true form still shielded from Dean’s eyes. But he allows his wings to come into being – still unseen – and cover the entrance. The wind tickles lightly against him. It would cut Dean through to the bone. 

At first Dean remains tense in the back of the cave, constantly braced in preparation for the next onslaught of the wind. When it doesn’t come for a few minutes, he slowly begins to relax. Tension leaves his shoulders, as much as it can in the shelter’s hunched confines.

He leans forward but grimaces at the sight of the continued snow. “It’s gotta clear up soon,” he says. Sounds unconvinced. By Castiel’s estimations the storm should pass in around three hours – is that “soon” by human standards? He’s not quite sure.

“It feels warmer,” Dean says aloud. Castiel takes a brief moment of pleasure at that, at knowing that his actions are having a tangible effect. Dean wouldn’t freeze without them, but if they’re making him more comfortable, then he thinks he’s doing his job.

Then Dean continues. “That probably means I’m getting hypothermia. Maybe I should get moving again.” 

Castiel frowns. That’s not the impact he wanted to have.

“But there’s no visibility out there. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going. And I’d rather die warm than not.” He leans against the back of the den. “As long as I’m awake. As long as I can think.”

Better. Castiel lifts the tips of his wings, just enough to allow a slight breeze to stir the air. He doesn’t want Dean to be afraid.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” Dean begins. Castiel briefly wonders why he’s reciting the exorcism – does he think a demon is responsible for the abating of the wind? Then Dean finishes and moves onto a second variation, and a third.

After that, there’s a pause, and then Dean starts reciting something else. “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying the stairway to Heaven…”

He’s staying awake, Castiel realizes. That’s what the exorcisms, the poetry are for. Maintaining continued awareness through the long night.

When the one about Heaven and wondering and songbirds is finished, he moves on to one about traveling to California, and then one about not having any quarter. It seems somewhat fitting for his situation, though Castiel has done the best that he can to provide shelter.

That’s how the time passes: Castiel outside, unseen, covers the den from the worst of the wind and snow. Dean stays inside, not warm, exactly, but not freezing either. He passes the time reciting chants, poetry, invocations, anything to consume his mind even momentarily. His voice is—pleasant. Soothing. It captivates Castiel in a way that human voices rarely do.

Three and a half hours later, the snow finally stops. Dean waits another half hour before he attempts to go outside, pushing away the snow that’s piled up outside the entrance. 

Castiel moves aside at the last moment, more out of instinct than anything, as it wouldn’t harm Dean to pass through where his presence is. One of his wings brushes Dean’s shoulder. Dean glances in his direction when it happens, momentarily freezing Castiel before he reminds himself that no, Dean doesn’t know that he’s there. He’s just surveying the land, making sure that the storm has really stopped, making sure that there are no skogsrås or any other predators, animals or monsters, around to attack. 

Castiel dissipates the last of the clouds. It’s close to midnight, and the moon shines strong through the bare branches. 

Dean briefly consults the map in his bag, murmuring all the while. “Okay. So if this is Wolf Den Rock, then that means that the trail goes straight… fuck. That’s a lot.”

He sighs and folds up the map. “Up and at ‘em, I guess.”

Castiel is fairly certain that Dean is out of any immediate danger. He seems to know where he’s going, and Castiel judges that his body is strong enough to make the trip in one stretch, even in the freezing weather.

He stays anyway. The snow is deep, maybe half a foot, and Dean trudges slowly down the trail, ever aware of the threat presented by hidden roots and rocks. 

More than once, Castiel stills the trees above him. Heavy snow weighs down the branches, and the slightest gust of wind would send it down to soak through Dean’s jacket. He also melts icy patches moments before Dean slips on them.

Perhaps he is overstepping the boundaries of his mission. He justifies it with the thought that humans are fragile. A fall here, the harsh contact of snow on skin there – it could add up to hypothermia in a heartbeat. Castiel is nothing if not meticulous about ensuring that his missions are completed in full.

By the time Dean reaches the trailhead one day has passed into the next. Castiel can hear his brethren and knows that he should be elsewhere, overseeing any of the many celebrations happening across the earth. The Host make an effort to be more present on this day than others. Its symbolic values are strong, even if the Son was really born in spring.

Still. He feels that nothing embodies the Son’s message more than ensuring the safety of a human.

For a moment, Dean leans against his car. Castiel, recognizing his exhaustion, went ahead and melted the snow from his surface. He’s banking on Dean being too tired to wonder at that, and he’s not disappointed.

Then Dean straightens out and pulls a set of keys from his pocket. He unlocks the door, tosses his bag in, and sits. As soon as the car is running, he turns the heat on full blast.

He stays a moment longer, letting his forehead rest against the steering wheel. “Fuck. What I wouldn’t give to have the Impala now.”

Castiel doesn’t know what he’s referencing. He wonders if the Impala is something he can retrieve for his charge, but decides against leaving, even if only for a moment.

He trails Dean on his way to a rundown motel about fifteen miles away. He clears the roads of black ice, recognizing all the while that his actions may be unnecessary. As tired as Dean is, he’s a careful driver, and the storm has kept the streets relatively free of other cars. But better safe than sorry.

When Dean enters his room, immediately throwing his wet jacket, hat, and gloves in a pile, Castiel knows he should leave. Dean is entirely out of the woods now. As he starts walking to the bathroom, Castiel almost flies away. He’s done here.

Then Dean pauses, and so Castiel does too.

Dean stands outside the bathroom for a moment, bracing himself against the doorframe with his head bowed. Then he turns and walks to where the phone rests on the nightstand. He picks it up, dials a number. Waits.

Finally, he speaks. “Hey, Sammy. I know it’s really late. Or early, maybe. And you’re probably either sleeping or partying. Hopefully not so busy studying you can’t pick up the phone. Uh. Anyway. I know it’s Christmas. And I just got in from a hunt and I’m probably going to be knocked out all day and then I’m leaving for Bobby’s. So I just wanted to say merry Christmas. Hope the package I sent got there in time. I’ll call you when I’m at Bobby’s, alright? Remember not to spend too much time in the library, and save some girls for the rest of us. Bye.”

Dean hangs up. For a moment he stares at the phone. Then he turns and trudges toward the bathroom.

Castiel leaves a moment before Zachariah officially calls him back. 

“You’re late,” his supervisor crisply informs him. “Our work doesn’t pause so you can obsess over the actions of mortals.”

Castiel dutifully apologizes and rejoins his garrison. Heaven’s mission is never done, and his work soon consumes him. He finds himself with few free moments to observe the going-ons of Earth.

But the night he spent watching over Dean stays with him. Something about the silence of the snowfall, of Dean quietly reciting words to himself to stay awake while Castiel kept watch over him. His panic before he took shelter. The tired look on his face as he struggled through the woods. The pause after his phone call.

Five years later, he hears Dean’s name once again, and when it’s paired with the words “righteous man,” it all makes sense. He volunteers to lead the mission to Hell. By all means a higher-ranking angel should get it, but Castiel has never felt more confident that this is the correct path to venture down. He’s unsurprised when Zachariah tells him he’s been selected.

The flames are the opposite of the cold of all those years ago, but his mind, when not in the moment, is with that snowy night. And when he sees Dean’s soul, he recognizes it immediately.


End file.
